With a focus on Brazilian migrant workers in Japan, this study produces a comprehensive picture of the forces driving transnational labor migration, both in the countries of origin of foreign workers and within Japan. How are Japan's labor institutions changing under globalization? What are the implications of these changes for the lives of people in Japan? Asking these and other questions, the book demonstrates how Japan's labor shortage has established a 'trans-national employment system' and shows that globalization is 'the very cause of the breaking up of Japan as a middle class society.' It also discusses the impact of concepts of nationality and family registration on the lives of foreign-born workers of Japanese descent within Japan.

Reviews

"Migrant Workers in Contemporary Japan has much to contribute to the study of transnational labour migration to Japan. Of particular importance are Tanno's efforts to combine various original sources in order to generate a more comprehensive and empirically grounded analysis for understanding the transnational employment system under conditions of globalization. ...an important resource for researchers, activists and policy makers who are interested in global labour migration and the politics of contemporary Japan." - Pacific Affairs, Vol. 88, No. 2, June 2015

About Editors and Authors

TANNO Kiyoto is a Japanese sociologist who is Professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University. He specializes in migration studies, labor sociology of foreign workers and ethnic studies.

He graduated from the Faculty of Economics, Kanagawa University, in 1991 and obtained a PhD in Sociology from Hitotsubashi University in 2003.